While central Ohio home sales continued their red-hot streak in June, the heat shifted from some
traditionally strong areas to less-likely locations.

Sales in central Ohio rose 10.4 percent last month from what they were in June 2012.

In the first half of the year, sales were up 22.2 percent, the highest level for that period
since the end of the housing boom in 2006.

Homes also sold quickly in June — in an average of 61 days, compared with 86 days in June
2012.

But transactions have slowed in some of the areas that helped lead the region out of the housing
recession. In the Dublin school district and in Grandview Heights and Worthington, for example,
sales fell in June compared with a year earlier; in the first six months of the year in those
locations, sales are up less than 2 percent.

Meanwhile, sales have gained a lot of steam in outlying areas such as Circleville and in the
Delaware County school districts of Buckeye Valley and Big Walnut, where they rose more than 50
percent in June and are up more than 40 percent this year.

In Circleville, where 74 homes were sold through June — compared with 52 during the first six
months of 2012 — homes on the market are in short supply.

“The market is good; it’s definitely improved. We feel very good about that,” said Susan Dickey
Beckley, owner of Dickey-Beckley Team Realtors in Circleville. “Our biggest issue is we have a
shortage of inventory.”

The shift in the marketplace can be attributed to several factors.

Communities such as Grandview, Dublin, Upper Arlington and Worthington recovered earlier, so the
2013 sales figures compare with strong sales figures from the same periods of 2012.

In addition, sales have been so strong in some areas that few homes remain available, reducing
sales.

Grandview and Worthington, for example, have less than a two-month supply of homes for sale —
well below the six-month inventory that’s considered an ideally balanced market.

“In Grandview, we still don’t have enough product there,” said Bob Sorrell, owner of Sorrell
& Co., which deals a lot in the Grandview and Upper Arlington areas. “We have people come into
our office asking for homes. We just don’t have them.”

A final explanation is that the financial recovery took longer to reach some parts of central
Ohio. Some homeowners who did not have enough equity in their homes to sell a year ago now do.

“Those are some of the people who took the longest to get back into an equity position to where
they can move,” said Chris Pedon, president of the Columbus Realtors trade group. “The other
markets moved quick and hard — the Grandviews, the Dublins, the Bexleys and all that.”

“If mortgage rates continue to increase, we could see a softening of the market,” Pedon said. “
But for now, many buyers have either jumped off the fence or stepped up their effort to buy now
instead of taking that chance.”

The average 30-year mortgage rate rose from 3.35 percent in early May to 4.37 percent last week,
according to the federal mortgage agency Freddie Mac.

Sale prices continued their slow climb in June; the median sales price of a Columbus-area home
was up 4 percent from a year earlier, to $159,000.

Statewide, home sales rose 15.5 percent in June, led by big jumps in the Cincinnati and Dayton
markets.

Nationally, home sales slipped 1.2 percent from May to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of
5.08 million a year. Despite the month-over-month drop in U.S. home sales, they were 15 percent
higher in the first six months of the year than they were in the same period of 2012.